Where's the most exotic place you've been?

Grand Caymans, Bahamas, St. Croix, and just about all the Caribbean Islands!

Probably India.

Figures from the Kama Sutra are carved into the exterior walls of the Hindu temples.

I asked the guide what one of the figures represented.
He answered, “That is showing how to satisfy 3 women at the same time”.

They’re soooo different from the religious structures found in most of the western world.

China, in 1979, soon after they had opened it to Westerners. It was very surreal, not having been groomed yet for tourists.

@Brian1946…would love to take that trip or either China @JilltheTooth !

I’ve traveled through Inner Mongolia and stayed in a Yurt.

Bermuda. I’d never seen coarse, crushed pink shell sand and crystal clear turquoise blue water before. It was the first time tasting a fresh, plump sea scallop and falling asleep to a tropical breeze tinged by the salt air.

Define exotic.

I have been on the top of a mountain in Sweden.

I have been scuba diving on a coral reef off the coast of Mexico

I have been in a cave (not the touristy variety) that opened into a large “room” where the top of the St. Edwards Aquifer was accessible and the water was so clear that one had to throw a stone to see where the air stopped and the water began.

I have scuba dived in Aquarena Springs where the Aquifer bubbles up out of the ground like a pot of boiling oatmeal to supply the San Marcos river.

I have been camping at timberline in the Colorado Rockey Mountains.

I have climbed to the top of a Mayan pyramid at Talum in Mexico.

I have been swimming with a school of Stingrays in the Grand Cayman Islands.

I’ve seen mustard fields in full bloom from a train window in Germany.

I’ve seen Bald Eagles hunting for fish in both Alaska and Texas.

I’ve ridden on a ship in the fjords of Norway.

And, to quote a Jimmy Buffet song… “There’s still so much to be done…”

@YoBob : I think you just defined exotic.

Tulum, Mexico.

The Mayan temples were absolutely surreal, and there were only a few other people there.

Lac Xao, Laos. A small village in the mountains, with an average of 3 hours of electricity a day, and a 6 hour bus ride from the nearest medical care.

Guyana, South America so far

It’s a toss up between Red Rocks Amphitheater and the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings both in Colorado.

Oh, I forgot Yellowstone National Park

Southern India, especially Vishakapatnam. South Africa, especially Table Mountain at Capetown. Lord Howe Island. Peru and Bolivia, especially Machu Picchu, and Sun Island at Lake Titicaca (That’s where my friend in my avatar picture is- an Aymara priest, giving us a welcome blessing) . Not interested in visiting mainland Europe or the US (except Alaska), but would love to see Canada.

Western Tibet. There are two major highways East-West across Tibet and we traveled on the southern one. Although it is the freight route for that part of the country, for the most part it is dirt. But there are modern bridges suddenly at river crossings installed recently by the Bejing government, who have also brought medicine and food that isn’t buckwheat or yak. The Himalayas to the south, to the North a lesser range rises from the 16,000 ft plateau. Most of the mountains are a purplish red-brown color.
Water is everything. If there is some water there are plants and yak and herders. If no water, rocks and sand. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where for weeks overhead I saw no airplanes or contrails etc.
Crossing valleys with no sign of civilization and no real road the drivers aimed for the pass in the next ridge. I could swear we were really in the middle of nowhere. After nearly two weeks, closer to the edge of nowhere, in the range to the north an anomalous bigger black mountain rises like some accident dropped from heaven or burped up from a black underworld. That is Mount Kailas, the earthly abode of Siva.
The highest point in the three day hike around Mt Kailas is the pass at 18,600 feet and my wife and I were there on our wedding anniversary by coincidence.
Mount Kailas has eons of incredible psychic focus installed by Buddhists, Hindus, and before them the Bon who all felt compelled to go around the thing uttering devout prayers of their kind. The vibes there, probably aided by the isolation and altitude, are very potent, serene, severe, riveting.
—
Machu Pichu is cool too, the site is spectacular. But I thought Winei Wanai, the next settlement along the Inca trail about three hours toward Cuzco at gringo speed, has a much less muddled psychic vibe and is on a beautiful and peaceful mountainside above the Urubamba River. It has a pleasant and industrious vibe. It has just a few structures but scads of terraces and I would guess it was a farm colony for Machu Pichu. The native Inka will carry ⅓ their weight in freight at a near run wearing flipflops on their feet. Probably did that back in the day too, but without the flipflops.
Vibes-wise Machu Pichu seemed to me to have a sorry accretion of discarded expectations from decades of seekers. There seemed not much to channel there but confusion and the altitude relief relative to Cuzco (6,700 ft from 12,000). There is a temple across the river from Machu Pichu that is off limits to tourists that from where we could see it seemed to still resonate some of the old Inka madness.

@dabbler Thank you for bringing life back to this great question and for sharing your experiences.

@hawaii_jake Can I now change my answer? I’ve been to Marrakesh since the first response, and that is one exotic city and an adventure that will not be forgotten.

@Pied_Pfeffer : Marrakesh must have been a real adventure. Wow.